3 Credit Hours

An introduction to the principal theoretical issues and questions in the discipline of literary studies. The course explores the major contemporary approaches to literary studies in the context of various traditions of literary theory and criticism. It encourages students to assess constructively some of the key controversies in contemporary critical theory and apply their learning to the interpretation of literary texts. This required course must be taken as one of the first three courses in the program.

3 Credit Hours

An introduction to the principal theoretical issues and questions in the discipline of literary studies. The course explores the major contemporary approaches to literary studies in the context of various traditions of literary theory and criticism. It encourages students to assess constructively some of the key controversies in contemporary critical theory and apply their learning to the interpretation of literary texts. This required course must be taken as one of the first three courses in the program.

3 Credit Hours

In January 2013, Cuban-American Richard Blanco was the first immigrant, Latino, and openly gay poet to be invited to read at a presidential inauguration. Blanco's presence, along with those of Sonia Sotomayor and Charles Rangel, point to a national recognition of Latino participation in U.S. political, civic, and cultural life. But Blanco's self-identification as immigrant, Latino, and gay also signals the multiplicity of identity that characterizes the lives of U.S. Latinos today. In our class, we will read contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and film to consider how these texts construct and/or interrogate discourses of citizenship and American identity, focusing on very recently published work by Sandra Cisneros, Sonia Sotomayor, Victor Lavalle, Junot Diaz, Luis Alberto Urrea, Richard Blanco, and others. We will also examine new and recent critical directions in ethnic and Latino Studies, including theories of post-ethnicity or post-race, transnational and hemispheric studies, as well as global approaches to Latinidad. This course satisfies the Multicultural Literature distribution requirement.

3 Credit Hours

In January 2013, Cuban-American Richard Blanco was the first immigrant, Latino, and openly gay poet to be invited to read at a presidential inauguration. Blanco's presence, along with those of Sonia Sotomayor and Charles Rangel, point to a national recognition of Latino participation in U.S. political, civic, and cultural life. But Blanco's self-identification as immigrant, Latino, and gay also signals the multiplicity of identity that characterizes the lives of U.S. Latinos today. In our class, we will read contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and film to consider how these texts construct and/or interrogate discourses of citizenship and American identity, focusing on very recently published work by Sandra Cisneros, Sonia Sotomayor, Victor Lavalle, Junot Diaz, Luis Alberto Urrea, Richard Blanco, and others. We will also examine new and recent critical directions in ethnic and Latino Studies, including theories of post-ethnicity or post-race, transnational and hemispheric studies, as well as global approaches to Latinidad. This course satisfies the Multicultural Literature distribution requirement.

3 Credit Hours

American schoolteacher Rachel Mordecai Lazarus and Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth maintained an avid transatlantic correspondence from 1815 until Lazarus's death in 1838. Along with letters, each woman sent packages across the sea to bring delight to the far-away friend. Preserved plants and insects, samples of needlework, and books made up many of these mailings. Of all the presents, the latest novel from abroad seemed to bring the greatest pleasure. British books had always flooded the American market; British authors were eager to obtain an international readership, while enterprising American publishers knew that English texts would bring ready, paying customers in the States. Although it was commonplace for British reviewers like the 1818 BRITISH CRITIC to insist that "The Americans have no national literature, and no learned men," the United States was, by the 19th century, producing distinctively American works that were bestsellers in England. Eve Taylor Bannet and Susan Manning argue that "Americans conceived of the works they wrote in America as participating in English literature, even as they declared the particularity of their experiences...The political independence of the American colonies was not so much a severing of ties as the renegotiation of a relationship." Bannet and Manning refer to this relationship, the interplay and influence of British and American writers upon each other, as a "transatlantic dialogue." This "transatlantic dialogue" will will be the subject of our course as we study the "conversation" between British and American counterparts such as William Godwin and Charles Brockden Brown, Maria Edgeworth and Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne and George Eliot. This course satisfies the pre-1900 American literature distribution requirement.

3 Credit Hours

American schoolteacher Rachel Mordecai Lazarus and Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth maintained an avid transatlantic correspondence from 1815 until Lazarus's death in 1838. Along with letters, each woman sent packages across the sea to bring delight to the far-away friend. Preserved plants and insects, samples of needlework, and books made up many of these mailings. Of all the presents, the latest novel from abroad seemed to bring the greatest pleasure. British books had always flooded the American market; British authors were eager to obtain an international readership, while enterprising American publishers knew that English texts would bring ready, paying customers in the States. Although it was commonplace for British reviewers like the 1818 BRITISH CRITIC to insist that "The Americans have no national literature, and no learned men," the United States was, by the 19th century, producing distinctively American works that were bestsellers in England. Eve Taylor Bannet and Susan Manning argue that "Americans conceived of the works they wrote in America as participating in English literature, even as they declared the particularity of their experiences...The political independence of the American colonies was not so much a severing of ties as the renegotiation of a relationship." Bannet and Manning refer to this relationship, the interplay and influence of British and American writers upon each other, as a "transatlantic dialogue." This "transatlantic dialogue" will will be the subject of our course as we study the "conversation" between British and American counterparts such as William Godwin and Charles Brockden Brown, Maria Edgeworth and Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne and George Eliot. This course satisfies the pre-1900 American literature distribution requirement.

3 Credit Hours

Geoffrey Chaucer, the fourteenth-century English poet, ambassador, and controller of customs, was a man well-versed in a variety of languages. Notable for his translation of Boethius' CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY and his translation of the French classic THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE (a translation which the French raved about), Chaucer is known mostly for his great social comedy, THE CANTERBURY TALES as well as his TROILUS AND CRISEYDE. This seminar will explore how in a highly stratified society, Chaucer offers a sympathetic treatment of women, the common people, and those deemed as the Other or outsider. This course satisfies the Pre-1800 British Literature distribution requirement and counts as a 600-level seminar. Prerequisite: GENG 513 or permission of the instructor and degree-seeking status.

3 Credit Hours

Geoffrey Chaucer, the fourteenth-century English poet, ambassador, and controller of customs, was a man well-versed in a variety of languages. Notable for his translation of Boethius' CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY and his translation of the French classic THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE (a translation which the French raved about), Chaucer is known mostly for his great social comedy, THE CANTERBURY TALES as well as his TROILUS AND CRISEYDE. This seminar will explore how in a highly stratified society, Chaucer offers a sympathetic treatment of women, the common people, and those deemed as the Other or outsider. This course satisfies the Pre-1800 British Literature distribution requirement and counts as a 600-level seminar. Prerequisite: GENG 513 or permission of the instructor and degree-seeking status.

3 Credit Hours

From Ezra Pound's avant-garde experiments with the Poets' Club to Gertrude Stein's Parisian salons, modernism arose in tandem with social clubs, cliques, and coteries. Central to our study of British modernism will be the Bloomsbury Group, today known for fostering some of the era's most influential thinkers, writers, and artists. In addition to reading the work of well-known members like Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster, we will also consider the group's "outsiders" in order to better understand its political and cultural complexities. Through the semester, our readings will allow us to explore the relationship between modernism and modernity--the ways in which artists and writers reacted to such cultural changes as industrialism, women's suffrage, emergent literacies, or World War I. Alongside these readings of early-twentieth-century prose and poetry, we will survey contemporary literary criticism, focusing on two recent shifts in the discipline: the emergence of "the new modernist studies" (Mao & Walkowitz) and new initiatives in the digital humanities. Finally, because Bloomsbury's members ranged widely in their intellectual and artistic commitments, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach to modernism, tracing pivotal experiments across and between the arts. We will examine, for instance, Roger Fry's pioneering work with the Post-Impressionist Exhibits of 1910 and 1912 and the collaborations between the riotous 1913 premiere of THE RITE OF SPRING. Writers may include E.M. Forster, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Mina Loy, Ezra Pound, H.D., T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Rebecca West, Aldous Huxley, and Mulk Raj Anand. This course counts both as elective credit and as a 600-level seminar. Prerequisite: GENG 513 or permission of the instructor and degree-seeking status.

3 Credit Hours

From Ezra Pound's avant-garde experiments with the Poets' Club to Gertrude Stein's Parisian salons, modernism arose in tandem with social clubs, cliques, and coteries. Central to our study of British modernism will be the Bloomsbury Group, today known for fostering some of the era's most influential thinkers, writers, and artists. In addition to reading the work of well-known members like Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster, we will also consider the group's "outsiders" in order to better understand its political and cultural complexities. Through the semester, our readings will allow us to explore the relationship between modernism and modernity--the ways in which artists and writers reacted to such cultural changes as industrialism, women's suffrage, emergent literacies, or World War I. Alongside these readings of early-twentieth-century prose and poetry, we will survey contemporary literary criticism, focusing on two recent shifts in the discipline: the emergence of "the new modernist studies" (Mao & Walkowitz) and new initiatives in the digital humanities. Finally, because Bloomsbury's members ranged widely in their intellectual and artistic commitments, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach to modernism, tracing pivotal experiments across and between the arts. We will examine, for instance, Roger Fry's pioneering work with the Post-Impressionist Exhibits of 1910 and 1912 and the collaborations between the riotous 1913 premiere of THE RITE OF SPRING. Writers may include E.M. Forster, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Mina Loy, Ezra Pound, H.D., T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Rebecca West, Aldous Huxley, and Mulk Raj Anand. This course counts both as elective credit and as a 600-level seminar. Prerequisite: GENG 513 or permission of the instructor and degree-seeking status.